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Thursday, June 18, 2009

Don't Tricked into High Fructose Corn Syrup

Thanks to Mike Adams, The Health Ranger, for putting together this great article on high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). At Aroma Thyme Bistro we have a strict policy of high fructose corn syrup. most kitchens purchase corn syrup and gallons and use it for certain desserts. And even worse-just corn syrup is in the majority of prepared foods. So as a restauranteur I take caution and read every single label very carefully. And while reading these labels I'm also looking for other ingredients like MSG, trans fats and other chemical preservatives. So we can proudly say that these ingredients are not in our kitchen. However there is one exception, and that is soda. Coca-Cola and Pepsi are loaded with high fructose corn syrup. But the good news is we also offer other sodas that are alternatively sweetened. So if you like rum and coke I would suggest you order a rum and Steaz.

High-Fructose Corn Syrup and Diabetes: What the Experts Say

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) According to the Corn Refiners Association, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is no worse for you than any other dietary carbohydrate. Many health experts, however, disagree, warning consumers that HFCS is strongly correlated with diabetes and obesity.

Today, we bring you selected quotes about HFCS and obesity from noted natural health authors. Feel free to quote these in your own work provided you give proper credit to both the original author quoted here and this NaturalNews page.

More than half of the carbohydrates being consumed are in the form of sugars (sucrose, corn syrup, etc.) being added to foods as sweetening agents. High consumption of refined sugars is linked to many chronic diseases, including obesity, diabetes, heartdisease, and cancer. Generally, the term "dietary fiber" refers to the components of plant cell wall and non-nutritive residues. Originally, the definition was restricted to substances that are not digestible by the endogenous secretions of the human digestive tract.- Textbook of Natural Medicine 2nd Edition Volume 1by Michael T. Murray, ND- Available on Amazon.com

Processed foods commonly include refined sweets such as sugar, honey, corn syrup, molasses, and corn sweeteners that contain no fiber and only insignificant amounts of nutrients per calorie. Numerous studies offer evidence that the consumption of white-flour products and sweets such as these can be a significant cause of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and even cancer. Each time you eat processed foods, you miss out not only on important known nutrients and phytonutrients, but also on all of the yet undiscovered phytonutrients.- Cholesterol Protection for Life, New Expanded Editionby Dr. Joel Fuhrman- Available on Amazon.com

High-fructose corn syrup is sweeter, is easier to handle during processing, has a longer shelf life, and keeps baked goods soft while giving them a warm, toasty color. Interestingly, as the use of high-fructose corn syrup has soared, America's obesity problem has also spiraled out of control. In fact, journalist Greg Critser, author of the intriguing Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World, observes that the lower-priced high-fructose corn syrup has allowed food producers to increase portion sizes without sacrificing profits.- Sugar Shock!: How Sweets and Simple Carbs Can Derail Your Life-- and How YouCan Get Back on Trackby Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.- Available on Amazon.com

Other sugar derivatives, including fructose and corn syrup, contribute to the excessive sugar load. Sugar provides empty calories and is a cheap way to get a boost of energy, since it is metabolized by the body into glucose. But too much sugar swamps the body, which is incapable of processing the sugar effectively. With continued overuse of sugar, the pancreas eventually wears out and is no longer able to clear sugar from the blood efficiently. The blood sugar level rises and diabetes may result.- Alternative Medicine the Definitive Guide, Second Editionby Larry Trivieri, Jr.- Available on Amazon.com

The whole of the industrial food supply was reformulated to reflect the new nutritional wisdom, giving us low-fat pork, low-fat Snackwell's, and all the low-fat pasta and high-fructose (yet low-fat!) corn syrup we could consume. Which turned out to be quite a lot. Oddly, Americans got really fat on their new low-fat diet-indeed, many date the current epidemic of obesity and diabetes to the late 1970s, when Americans began bingeing on carbohydrates, ostensibly as a way to avoid the evils of fat. - In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifestoby Michael Pollan- Available on Amazon.com

The people who make those awful bottled "natural" fruit drinks and teas aren't going to like this, but it's possible that the steep rise in our consumption of high fructose corn syrup has contributed to the rise in diabetes by depleting chromium. (As our consumption of high fructose corn syrup has risen 250 percent in the past 15 years, our rate of diabetes has increased approximately 45 percent in about the same time period.- Bottom Line's Prescription Alternativesby Earl L. Mindell, RPh, PhD with Virginia Hopkins, MA- Available on Amazon.com

Although sugar is frequently disguised in labels under another name, whether as fructose, sucrose, corn syrup, dextrose, lactose, or maltodextrose, it's still sugar. High-sugar diets contribute to the development of Syndrome X, yeast infections of all types, obesity, diabetes, hypoglycemia, gallbladder disease, and some types of psychological problems, especially depression and premenstrual syndrome. Processed foods and junk food, these foods are synonymous with "fast food." They are devoid of sound nutrition and high in sugar, fat, salt, and chemical preservatives.- Intelligent Medicine: A Guide to Optimizing Health and Preventing Illness for the Baby-Boomer Generationby Ronald L. Hoffman, M.D.- Available on Amazon.com

The average American now consumes over 100 pounds of sucrose and 40 pounds of corn syrup each year. This sugar addiction probably plays a major role in the high prevalence of poor health and chronic disease in the United States. Research in the past three decades has provided an ever-increasing amount of new information on the role that both refined carbohydrates (sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and low-fiber starchy foods) and faulty blood sugar control play in many disease processes.- Hunger Free Forever: The New Science of Appetite Controlby Michael T. Murray and Michael R. Lyon- Available on Amazon.com

Some suggest that high-fructose corn syrup, which is widely used as an inexpensive sweetener in juice, soft drinks, and processed foods, might predispose people to diabetes. In animal research this sugar leads to insulin resistance and poor glucose tolerance. Until this controversy is sorted out, we discourage the consumption of foods and beverages containing high-fructose corn syrup.- Best Choices From the People's Pharmacyby Joe Graedon, M.S. and Teresa Graedon, Ph.D.- Available on Amazon.com

These types of sweeteners are among the main causes of obesity in the United States today. Corn syrup is a cheap sweetener which helps hold the product price down. This corn sweetener is six times sweeter than cane sugar and started replacing other sugars as its popularity and low price caught on in the market place. It is now used in 40% of all products that have sweeteners added. The average American consumes high amounts of corn syrup every day.- Defeat Cancerby Gregory, A. Gore- Available on Amazon.com

Some evidence indicates that fructose and high-fructose corn syrup have a more pronounced effect than do glucose and sucrose on taste receptors, imprinting both the tongue and the brain with a stronger desire for sweet foods throughout life. There is also evidence that fructose and high-fructose corn syrup modify the brain's appetite-regulating centers. Fructose decreases levels of leptin, a hunger-suppressing hormone, and it boosts levels of ghrelin, a hunger-stimulating hormone creating a double-whammy that fosters more eating and weight gain.- Stop Prediabetes Now: The Ultimate Plan to Lose Weight and Prevent Diabetesby Jack Challem- Available on Amazon.com

In the carbohydrate category, relatively low-glycemic carbohydrates include things like yams or sweet potatoes; whole grains, like whole grain brown rice and whole grain barley; and sugars like Agave nectar rather than fructose, processed sugar or high fructose corn syrup. Stevia is, of course, an excellent sweetener to use. It has virtually no blood sugar effect whatsoever. If you want a tasty sweetener that is extremely low on the glycemic index, get Agave nectar. Ideally, get Agave nectar grown and harvested from Blue Weber agave plants.- Natural Health Solutionsby Mike Adams- Available on Amazon.com

How excessive tax subsidies of corn production result in the ubiquitous sweetener high fructose corn syrup (which some experts say contributes to weight gain) is an excellent illustration. But I am especially outraged by the examples in this chapter because they are blatant and deliberate strategies to place corporate profits above public interest. It's as if government officials aren't even trying to hide how deeply inside industry's pockets they have buried themselves.- Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Backby Michele Simon- Available on Amazon.com

Consumption of sugar (or its equivalents, like corn syrup) in soft drinks has been linked to obesity in children and adolescents. But a recent study of almost all fifty-year-old men and women in Framingham, Massachusetts, found that having more than one soft drink, whether sugared or diet, increased the risk of metabolic syndrome by 44 percent over a four-year period. The risk was increased similarly whether the drink was sugared or diet.- You: Staying Young: The Owner's Manual for Extending Your Warrantyby Mehmet C. Oz., M.D. and Michael F. Roizen, M.D.- Available on Amazon.com

At one end of the spectrum would be white refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup, probably the two that cause the most harm to the body. On the other end of the spectrum is Stevia, which is actually beneficial to the body and has little to no effect on the blood sugar. Concentrated sweeteners of any kind, natural or otherwise, are best kept to a minimum. Consider foods made with them as special treats rather than daily events. When you do indulge, the natural sweeteners that follow are your best choice. On a regular basis, keep them to a minimum in accordance with your tolerance level.- If It's Not Food, Don't Eat It! The No-nonsense Guide to an Eating-for-Health Lifestyleby Kelly Harford, M.C., C.N.C.- Available on Amazon.com

Whether you take your sweetness in the form of table sugar, brown sugar, turbinado, raw sugar, honey, glucose, dextrose, or corn syrup, it puts an enormous strain on your system and acts as a cross-linking free radical to damage your cells. One of the most common results of over consumption of sugar is hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar. Some 35 percent of all Americans suffer from some form of this condition, in which a craving for sugar is followed by a swift high and then a painful crash as sweet foods are consumed.- Stopping the Clock: Longevity for the New Milleniumby Ronald Klatz and Robert Goldman- Available on Amazon.com

A fight between picturesque villagers who want to drink water where they've lived all their lives and a multinational that wants to buy it on the cheap, whip some corn syrup into it, and sell it back to them at irrationally exuberant prices is one into which even Tom Friedman might find it hard to fly. America's right to consume as much oil as it can lay its hands on may be god-given and defensible by thermonuclear warfare. But obesity from sugary water still sounds like a dubious privilege in a constitutional republic. That, briefly, is the quandary of the new globalized world.- Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics (Agora Series)by William Bonner, Lila Rajiva- Available on Amazon.com

Instead of containing fat, they were loaded with sugars like corn syrup, sucrose and other refined sugars. As a result, when people consumed these products, their bodies converted those sugars into body fat. Thus, the very products that claimed to be fat-free were promoting the creation and storage of body fat in the bodies of people who ate them. That's classic misdirection. Today, we see a lot of products that claim to be sugar-free foods.- Spam Filters for Your Brainby Mike Adams- Available on Amazon.com

All sugar-intolerant people, especially those suffering from seizures, should avoid all refined sugars (white sugar, corn syrup, fructose, commercial honey) and all synthetic sugars, especially NutraSweet. Even organic whole sugars such as sucanat (whole sugar cane) and raw honey can be problematic. The source of dietary sugar should be organic whole fruits and fruit juices. Blood Sugar can be maintained at night by eating a salty snack, drinking fruit juice, or eating a light protein snack just before bed.- The Enzyme Cure: How Plant Enzymes Can Help You Relieve 36 Health Problemsby Lita Lee, Lisa Turner and Burton Goldberg- Available on Amazon.com

Eliminate refined sugar and processed food that contains refined sugar such as table sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup and dextrose. Use natural sweeteners such as maple syrup, raw honey, black strap molasses, date sugar and others. Eliminate trans-fatty acids, fat is a much-maligned macronutrient. We have been brainwashed by dieticians and the diet industry into believing that eating fat is bad for our health and that dietary fat is responsible for obesity.- Overcoming Thyroid Disordersby David Brownstein- Available on Amazon.com

A 1989 study by the National Research Council ("Diet and Health Implications for Reducing Chronic Disease Risk"; Washington, DC, National Academy Press) concluded that the typical individual consumes more than 100 pounds of sucrose and 35 pounds of corn syrup every year. Clinical nutritionists also concur that low blood sugar causes foggy brain functioning. Think of it this way: The brain is dependent on glucose just as the lungs are dependent on oxygen. When the ratio of either is askew, your body will feel off-balance.- Food Swings: Make the Life-Changing Connection Between the Foods You Eat and Your Emotional Health and Well-Beingby Barnet Meltzer, M.D.- Available on Amazon.com

Soft drinks are for the most part sweetened with corn syrup, a mixture of glucose (a monosaccharide sugar), fructose (a monosaccharide sugar), maltose (a disaccharide sugar), and other small saccharides in other words, sugars. From a biochemical and physiological standpoint, these sugars are similar to sucrose, as all are convertible to glucose (blood sugar) in the body. To argue that soft drinks "do not contain sugar" because they are not sweetened with sucrose is misleading and not in the interest of public education about diet and health. - Food Fightby Kelly Brownell and Katherine Battle Horgen- Available on Amazon.com

Certain types of sugar also have less impact on blood sugar than others. Those that least affect blood sugar contain a higher proportion of fructose relative to glucose or sucrose. The newest "star" in the sugar world is agave nectar or syrup, which comes from a cactus-like plant. It has a very low glycemic index, as it is 90 percent fructose. - Defeating Diabetesby Brenda Davis and Tom Barnard- Available on Amazon.com

Any label that says sucrose, glucose, maltose, lactose, fructose, sugar, corn syrup, or white grape juice concentrate is a source of added dietary sugar. With all this talk of lowering cholesterol and improving the cholesterol ratios, it is easy to forget how important it is to balance the blood pressure and how foods may have a positive or a negative effect on this. For example, a diet low in potassium and high in sodium is associated with high blood pressure. By contrast, a diet high in potassium and low in sodium can protect against elevation of blood pressure.- Women's Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine: Alternative Therapies and Integrative Medicine for Total Health and Wellnessby Tori Hudson, N.D.- Available on Amazon.com

High fructose corn syrup came into widespread use as a sugar substitute in the 1970's because of its lower price. By 1990 the quantity of fructose consumed had gone up ten fold. This is now present in candy, soda, cereal, crackers, bread and hundreds of other foods. Fructose was believed to be a safe sugar substitute because it has no adverse effects on either blood sugar values or insulin output. However, there are two serious problems from fructose usage. When ingested, fructose is immediately shuttled directly to the liver.- A Physician's Guide To Natural Health Products That Workby James A. Howenstine, MD- Available on Amazon.com